• Syrian Kurdish militia says ISIS used poison gas in attacks on militia fighters

    A Syrian-Kurdish militia and a group monitoring the Syrian war have said Islamic State used poison gas in attacks against Kurdish-controlled areas of north-east Syria in late June. The Kurdish YPG militia said ISIS had fired “makeshift chemical projectiles” on 28 June at a YPG-controlled area of the city of Hasakah, and at YPG positions south of the town of Tel Brak to the north-east of Hasakah. In January, Kurdish sources in Iraq said that ISIS used chlorine gas as a chemical weapon against Kurdish peshmerga fighters on 23 January. In the previous Islamist insurgency in Iraq – in Anbar province, in 2006-2007 – there was evidence of chemical use by the insurgents. The insurgents in 2006-2007 were members of al-Qaeda in Iraq, which later transformed itself into ISIS.

  • Extremist groups use social media to lure recruits, find support

    In the past, extremist groups have used tools and forums which were available: Rallies, pamphleteering, and marching in parades were the primary means used for recruitment and spreading their message. Now, as is the case with many other individuals and groups, these efforts have adapted to more contemporary media to target college and university campuses, to gain new members or, at least, sympathy to their cause. They now use the Internet to conduct forums and publish newsletters, a method that exposes potentially millions to their message.

  • Libyan factions, outside powers use southwest Libya tribes in proxy war

    Since September last year, a bloody war has been raging between the Tuareg and Tebu, two indigenous tribes in the remote Saharan oasis town of Ubari, in Libya’s rich southern oil fields near Libya’s border with Algeria, Niger, and Chad. Each side is supported by different Libyan factions and outside forces, all vying for control of the mineral-rich and politically volatile area. As the United States and Europe grow more concerned about the growing presence of ISIS in Libya, they have begun to pay more attention to the war between the Tuareg and Tebu and the potential it offers for ISIS for more mischief.

  • Buhari replaces Nigeria’s top military leaders as fight against Boko Haram intensifies

    Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, made defeating the Islamist Boko Haram insurgents his top priority, and earlier this week he took the first decisive step toward achieving this goal: He sacked the defense minister; the commanders of the army, navy, and air force; the head of the defense intelligence service, and the national security adviser. The Boko Haram insurgency, which began in 2009, has killed as many as 15,000 and displaced 1.5 million people.

  • Mass. man arrested for planning ISIS-inspired attack on a college campus

    Alexander Ciccolo, 23, who is also known as Ali Al Amriki, was arrested by the FBI for planning to carry out an Islamic State-inspired attack on one or two Boston college campuses, using guns and improvised explosives, including a pressure-cooker bomb like the ones used in the Boston Marathon bombing. Ciccolo was arrested after he took a delivery of four guns on 4 July. He was under surveillance by law enforcement since September, when his father, a Boston police captain, alerted federal authorities about his son’s growing infatuation with Islam and the Islamic State. Ciccolo told a cooperating witness that his attack would be concentrated on dormitories and a cafeteria, according to court documents, “and would include executions of students broadcast live via the Internet.”

  • Assad is still using chemical weapons. What will it take to stop him?

    While the Syrian conflict has been perpetually overshadowed in the headlines by recent events such as the possibility of a Grexit and the Chinese stock market crash, two recent developments regarding Syria’s use of chemical weapons have nearly managed to refocus international attention on Syria. First, on June 17th the House Committee on Foreign Affairs convened a hearing on the Assad regime’s use of chlorine barrel bombs. Second, U.S. intelligence agencies publicly reported this week that they expect another attack by the regime using chemical weapons beyond chlorine bombs. In particular, the Syrian government is suspected of maintaining stocks of sarin and VX gas.

  • Kosovo’s capital cuts water supplies for fear of ISIS plot to poison reservoir

    Kosovo security and health authorities have cut off water supplies to tens of thousands of residents in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital, following a suspicion that ISIS followers had poisoned the city’s water supplies. The city’s water board said supply was cut early on Saturday “because of security issues” and that supplies had been tested for suspicious substances. Police sources say that security officers patrolling the Badovac reservoir saw three of the men behaving suspiciously near the reservoir, and arrested them. They were later identified as ISIS supporters. Kosovar members of ISIS recently appeared in propaganda videos, warning of attacks against targets in the Balkans, including the water supplies of major cities.

  • Canadian Senate panel: Imams should be vetted, certified to stamp out “extreme ideas”

    A Canadian Senate committee said Canada must go much further in cracking down on radicalism and terrorism, including a process to certify, or verify, the credentials of Muslim imams as a means of stamping out “extreme ideas.” The committee’s twenty-five recommendations on how to fight radicalization in Canada more effectively follow closely on the heels of a controversial new anti-terror law, C-51, which calls for a more pervasive, and potentially more intrusive, fight against extremism and radicalization in Canada.

  • Countering extremist groups’ social media influence, persuasion

    Social media has become a vital channel for terrorist groups to share news and seduce new members. The recent, notable successes of ISIS in the United States and Europe have demonstrated that terror groups can successfully use this approach to further their agenda of violence. While it gets less attention, social media is equally important for groups that are sharing and communicating information to counter extremist discourse. The problem is, how can those looking to counter the violent ideology of groups like ISIS analyze all the conversations to determine what is a significant danger? How can groups countering violent extremism leverage social media to limit the diffusion of extremist ideology? New research aimed at helping to solve this puzzle.

  • Israel to build sophisticated fencing system along border with Jordan to keep ISIS out

    Israel’s cabinet has approved the construction of a new high-tech fencing along Israel’s border with Jordan, with the aim of making it more difficult for Islamist terrorists such as members of ISIS from entering the country. Israel has built sophisticated fencing – indeed, complex defensive systems — along its borders with Lebanon, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Sinai. A similar system has been built along parts of Israel’s border with Syria. The Israeli security services are worried that a route through Jordan, the border with which is not as tightly secured as Israel’s borders with its other neighbors, may be an entryway for its enemies.

  • “Strong possibility” Assad may use chemical weapons on a large scale to protect regime: U.S. intelligence

    U.S. intelligence agencies say there is a strong possibility the Assad regime will use chemical weapons on a large scale as part of a last-ditch effort to protect important Syrian government strongholds, or if the regime felt it had no other way to defend the core territory of its most reliable supporters, the Alawites. Following a 21 August 2013 sarin gas attack by the Syrian military on Sunni suburbs of Damascus, in which more than 1,400 civilians were killed, President Bashar al-Assad allowed international inspectors to remove the Syrian regime’s most toxic chemical weapons, but after the most toxic chemicals were removed, the Assad regime has developed and deployed a new type of chemical bomb filled with chlorine. Western intelligence services suspect that the regime may have kept at least a small quantity of the chemical precursors needed to make nerve agents sarin or VX.

  • New York state, city officials mismanaged millions in anti-terror grants: DHS IG

    A new report from DHS Inspector General found that New York City and the state of New York have mismanaged millions of dollars in federal grants meant to help improve homeland security. DHS IG found that New York officials spent nearly 10 percent – or $67 million of the $725 million granted during three years by the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) — on questionable costs not in line with homeland security goals or strategies.

  • Teaching terror: what role for schools in countering violent extremism?

    A new report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute calls for the inclusion of counter-radicalization messages in the school curriculum and for the teaching of the situation in the Middle East and Australia’s involvement. Those who propose that schools should help law-enforcement identify students who might be susceptible to radicalization should realize that any approach that attempts to identify people for law enforcement and other forms of intervention risks over-reporting on radicalization. It also fails to understand that young people may superficially engage with some of the symbols of violent extremist organizations without fully comprehending the implications of such actions or without ever actually agreeing with those ideologies that promote and justify violent extremism. Perhaps even more concerning is that certain behaviors considered indicative of radicalization could potentially “misdiagnose” other issues such as drug abuse, family violence or mental illness. Assessing whether or not an individual is radicalized to the point where they pose a risk of violent extremism is far beyond the core business of education.

  • Studying terrorists' social-media recruiting power in order to negate it

    Last month a United Nations panel asked social-media companies such as Twitter and Facebook to respond to how terrorist groups use their networks to spread propaganda or recruit members with increasing success. As these terrorist groups, such as ISIS or al-Qaeda, evolve their social-media skills, the U.S. Department of Defense’s Minerva Project is funding a research project by a team of researchers who will be monitoring these groups’ advancements and trying to determine how their online actions can be negated.

  • In attacks on Egyptian targets, Sinai Islamists emulate ISIS tactics in Syria, Iraq

    An ISIS-affiliated Islamist group says it is in control of several cities in northern Sinai, following heavy fighting Wednesday in which nearly seventy Egyptian soldiers and more than 100 Islamists were killed. It is not yet known how many civilians were killed in the fighting, which is continuing this morning. Analysts say that the escalation of the fighting in Sinai, and the Islamists’ changing tactics, mean that what we are witnessing is an all-out war between the Egyptian state and the militants, a war which is coming to resemble the war conducted by ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The comparisons between the Sinai Islamists and ISIS should not be overdrawn, though. There are many important differences between the situation in Syria and Iraq, on the one hand, and the situation in Egypt.